This customer interview provides a key opportunity that many organizations overlook: The recorded audio can be repurposed for a podcast. Why produce a written document alone when you can provide direct access to the customer’s unique voice? For many prospects, actually hearing real customers endorse a product or service can be very convincing. Podcasts can supplement case studies and product web pages, provide multimedia content for interactive eBooks and conference presentations, and can even be incorporated into a series offered to subscribers over iTunes or other online distribution services.

Following the important guidelines below will help make the most of your customer interviews and help you produce high-quality results.

Use a good phone in a quiet room

It’s a simple request, but it’s often neglected. Customers are busy, and many try to fit interviews into spare moments during the day, including the time when they are commuting to and from work, eating lunch, or waiting to board a plane. Unfortunately, a bad phone connection or excessive background noise will ruin the potential for using interview audio for a podcast.

To help deliver the best possible audio quality, ask customers to use a landline rather than a cell phone or IP-based phone, and conduct the call from a quiet office or conference room. Also avoid speakerphones for the interview, if possible, in the interest of good audio quality. In order to make sure your interviewee can accommodate your technological requests, it’s best to make them well in advance of the interview, and then remind and re-remind the customer to improve your odds of getting a clear recording.

Record in the highest-quality format available

Many modern recorders and computer-based recording applications offer the option of recording high-resolution audio, such as CD-quality WAV or AIFF formats. Using these high-resolution formats — rather than MP3 or WMV formats — will help generate the best possible recording from the outset. After interviewing and editing, you can always create smaller file sizes, with lower-resolution audio, when the podcast is complete.

It’s also helpful to record the interviewer and customer on separate audio tracks, as some recording software allows, which enables you to re-record the interview questions later to eliminate errors, improve the flow of the discussion, and better match the questions to the answers from the customer. In fact, some of the best customer endorsements are spoken voluntarily or in response to completely different questions. If it is not possible to separate the audio tracks, the interviewer must be sure to stay silent when the customer is speaking to facilitate editing later.

Tell a good story

After the interview is completed, you can begin constructing the podcast. Informal discussions that take place during a 30- or 60-minute interview need editing and fine-tuning to produce cohesive, engaging, and concise podcasts.

Short podcasts (between 30 seconds and 2 minutes long) often work best. In today’s fast-moving, short-attention-span world, audiences are reluctant to listen to long recordings. As a result, it’s essential to focus on the customer responses that are most articulate, most supportive of key messages and, if at all possible, most entertaining or insightful.

At TDA Group, it’s our standard practice to produce a written transcript of the interview, including time stamps (which are handy during audio editing). Working from the original transcript, we find the best quotes from the customer and arrange them into the best story possible for the podcast.

Once we have identified and arranged the best customer quotes, we fine-tune the questions. Subtle modifications to the questions smooth the flow from one topic to the next, and help the listener effortlessly follow the transitions.

Polish the audio

Using the edited, time-stamped transcript, an audio engineer edits the recorded audio. In addition to assembling the specific phrases and sentences we need, in the right order, the engineer removes awkward silences and deletes coughs, sneezes, “ums,” and “uhs”, so all participants sound their best.

We also re-record the questions to coincide with the edited audio. Finally, the engineer incorporates introductory theme music or other music as appropriate.

Get it ready for prime time

The final step involves preparing the audio files in whatever format (or formats) needed. Podcasts are usually offered as downloads, streaming audio, and/or integrated with multimedia.

Creating podcasts from customer reference interviews is an efficient way to leverage and highlight the voice of the customer, but it does require advance planning and post-production work to achieve the best results. Ask your customer reference team how they optimize customer interviews. If podcasts aren’t on their list of deliverables, they should be.

What about you? Have any podcasting or interview tips to share? 

Image Credit

Interview with Rebecca Lieb from Altimeter

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Whether I’m in the car, riding the train, or even just sitting on the couch in my living room, I enjoy hearing people share off-the-cuff opinions on interesting topics. Conversations are fun — that’s just me.

But I also create a lot of podcasts: Every week on OpenView Labs, we post a new podcast episode on varying areas of company development, often with the help of influential guests from around the industry. There are a lot of reasons why podcasting works. As CMI has pointed out many times, different people consume content in different ways, and it’s important to get your message and brand out across multiple channels. Podcasts can also help add variety to a mostly text-based content strategy. 

So obviously, I like podcasts. That’s great. But why should you like them too? If you’re not already creating at least occasional podcasts or audiocasts as part of your content marketing efforts, here are three things to consider.

#1. Podcasts are an easy way to generate guest content

Content marketers talk a lot about leveraging guest content, particularly from thought leaders and influencers. But one of the biggest challenges with obtaining guest content goes beyond simply building relationships with your target influencers. Often, those people are just too busy to sit down and compose something unique from scratch. “I’d love to help, but I’m just too swamped at the moment. Can we touch base again in a few months?” It’s a common response that marketers hear all too often.

But while writing an original article might sound too tedious for some thought leaders, most are much more open to a 15-minute phone call. The next time you’re looking to wrangle a bit of guest content from an influencer, develop a topic and a few questions and ask if he or she would be willing to call in for a short chat to share some thoughts. More often than not, they’ll say yes.

#2. Podcasts are a quick-turnaround format

No matter what type of audio software you use, you’ll soon find that the editing process for a podcast or audiocast is almost always a breeze. (We are partial to GarageBand, but I’ve also used free options like Audacity.) Simply record your conversation, add a short intro (I recommend purchasing some theme music as well), give the audio a listen to make sure the sound is clear and at a good volume, and you’re good to go.

Once you save the audio as an MP3 file, it’s essentially ready to post on your site. Simple as that!

#3. Transcribed podcast conversations are a simple source of written content

Obviously, one of the downsides of audio content is that there’s not much text for Google search engines to crawl. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Even if you were just slapping an MP3 file onto a (mostly) blank blog post, a well-optimized title and meta-description is still a must. But why stop there? By transcribing the audio of your podcasts, you can not only generate more written content for your site, but also increase the potential SEO value of your podcast content based on the target keywords found in the transcription.

Better yet, say you recorded a 15-minute podcast where you asked a thought leader five questions around a specific topic. By transcribing the audio, you could split each question and response up into its own mini-blog post. Suddenly, you have six pieces of valuable, unique content (the five posts and the podcast itself), all from a single 15-minute conversation.

Obviously, podcasts aren’t for everyone, and traditional written content will always be the bread-and-butter of a successful content strategy. But by choosing the right opportunities to start rolling out podcasting as part of your overall efforts, marketers can easily begin to generate more unique, influential content in very little time.

Image credit to Danilo Rizzuti/Free Digital Photos 

Of course, it’s easy for Hollywood to tell great stories — it has a “secret storytelling sauce.” But Hollywood doesn’t have to be the only one with the formula for telling great stories.

Your marketing videos can have some of that secret sauce too

And here’s the best part: Using Hollywood’s secret sauce is simple.

I’ve used this formula successfully many times in my former career as a marketing and branding filmmaker.

I’m going to show you how you can use it too.

It’s your story that differentiates you from the competition

Story is what differentiates you from your competition. After all, it’s your story — not anyone else’s.

In their book, Managing Content Marketing, authors Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose talk about how important it is for a business to develop and share its story. Specifically, chapter 3, Create the Journey: Developing Your Pillars of Content, shares how businesses can use a classic storytelling model, The Hero’s Journey, to execute on a story-based content marketing strategy.

What is the Hero’s Journey?

Mythologist Joseph Campbell popularized The Hero’s Journey in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell’s insight told us that powerful stories and narratives share a common structure. At the heart of this structure, there is a hero who goes through several stages. Here’s an overly simplified version:

1. The Journey

The hero experiences a calling — a call to leave the world of comfort behind and discover something greater.

2. The Transformation

Along his quest of discovery, the hero is challenged by many tests and obstacles yet eventually overcomes them.

3. The Return

Having triumphed over the obstacles, the hero returns to share the new-found knowledge with others.

So, back to reality. If you feel this Hero’s Journey stuff is pie-in-the-sky, I hear you. That’s what I thought years ago. Then I started using it in projects. I noticed that using The Hero’s Journey structure:

• simplifies the interviewing process
• provides structure in delivering a message
• deepens the engagement process

Let’s take a look at how can you use this structure in your own video (and audio) projects.

Video is the perfect medium to tell your stories and to differentiate yourself; it captures music, voice, scenic footage, and graphics in one format. (Feel free to use this template to energize your podcasts, as well.)

A simple Hero’s Journey template for marketing videos

Tweaking The Hero’s Journey for video is quite simple. Here’s a structure to get you started.

Let’s say a hospital is announcing a new treatment center. (This could apply to a new program, a new initiative, etc.) We’ll keep this example simple so you can see how it easy it is to customize.

These questions are a starting point; they are not meant to be a complete list.

1. Where are we now? (Problem)

• Share with us how most treatment centers operate today.
• Why is this a problem?
• How did we get here in the first place? Weren’t things fine as they were?
• How did you get the idea to change the model?

2. Where do we want to be? (Solution)

• Talk a bit about how the opportunity to change things came about.
• What are the biggest challenges you are facing?
• How are customers (internal teams, etc.) reacting to this challenge?

3. What have we learned? (Results)

• Now that you’ve been through the process, how do you feel?
• How have your customers (patients, doctors, employees, etc.) responded?
• Do you have any encouraging words to those watching this video?

4.  What should we do next?

• What specific action should the viewers of this video do next?

This template can easily be tweaked for ongoing programs or services. You don’t have to wait until products or announcements are final.

Customizing The Hero’s Journey

One of the three key play points for video mentioned in the free eBook, CMI’s Content Marketing Playbook 2011: 42 Ways to Connect with Customers, is this:

Instead of taking a one-shot approach, consider a video series that builds interest, and an audience, over time.

This fits beautifully within The Hero’s Journey structure. Here’s one way to use this idea.

Create one video focusing on one act. Instead of producing one three- or five-minute video, consider breaking the project down into three one-minute videos, four videos, or even five videos.

For an audience with shorter attention spans, breaking one longer video down into several shorter videos can improve the odds your audience will view the videos. For some viewers, seeing a 90-second video is more inviting than seeing the time indicator showing five minutes.

Rinse and repeat for each product, service, or training you offer.

Summary

You may not produce the next Hollywood blockbuster, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add a little of Hollywood’s secret sauce to your marketing videos.

Have an interview coming up? Try sneaking in a few questions using The Hero’s Journey framework. If you like the results, try it again. It’s easy to adjust for many projects.

Over to you

Have you used The Hero’s Journey in any of your projects? If so, we’d love to hear about it.

If not, have you used something similar to The Hero’s Journey?

Do you have a structure (or formula) that works well for capturing content?

• Meets the needs of sales and marketing
• Is compelling
• Can be created quickly
• Can be created cost-effectively
• Supports the sales cycle

We covered a lot of ground in our discussion (which you can listen to or view in its entirety). But I’ve put together some of the main tips and takeaways here as a summary.

Understand your audience

Whether you create content to raise awareness of your products and services, establish thought leadership, increase your search rankings, feed your social media engine, or nurture your leads, remember that your ultimate goal is to generate sales leads. It’s a point many marketers lose sight of.

TO DO: Start by analyzing your sales funnel:

• What sales objections and questions do you typically encounter for each stage of the sales funnel?  
• Who are you speaking to if you had to categorize them by persona?
• Do you have content that addresses their objections or their questions for every stage?

A big portion of the content will be used by the sales reps and not just for your marketing efforts. So the key steps here are:

1. Determine your personas.
2. Understand your buying cycles.
3. Map your content to your funnel.
4. Fill any gaps you find with new and relevant content.

Create alignment with sales

Marketing and sales may not qualify leads the same way. You need to have a handle on the differences so you can create content that addresses the needs of both marketing and sales.

TO DO:

1. Sit down with your senior sales leadership and perhaps a top individual performer to discuss what signs they look for in a lead at every stage of the sales cycle. Obvious signs may be job title or company size, but there may also be smaller signs — like specific customer pain points — that would equally qualify them.
2. Assign weighted values to each qualifier. You’ll soon learn what is important to the sales cycle, and you can then create content as well as calls to action that will help you determine if a prospect qualifies as a lead.

These factors should influence your content development and promotion efforts and will quickly get sales to buy in to your efforts.

Be prepared to repurpose your content

You need to balance the demands of your tight budget and the buyers’ needs to consume content in their own preferred channels and format.  Make your life easier and minimize the impact on your budge  by repurposing some of the content that you create to fit other platforms.

TO DO: Plan to repurpose key content. For instance, if you host a webinar and record it you can:

• Reproduce it as a podcast.
• Transcribe that podcast into a pseudo-white paper.
• Take some of the key points in the white paper and turn them into a blog post.
• Leverage some of your sound-bite worthy quotes from any of these assets for social media traffic generation.

Now you have at least four pieces of content from the one piece you spent time and money on to create. With all of the content you’ve just created, your website looks more impressive and credible, and your prospects have more options for consuming your content through their preferred channels.

Cross-promote whenever possible

In any business field, there is only so much that is new and content creation-worthy at a given time. Even the best writers can get writer’s block and find it hard to create new materials. You can overcome these issues by using content created by others to inspire your own content development efforts.

TO DO: Share content you find with others by using your own words and points of view to create more robust and interactive conversations with your audience. Some ideas:

• If you see a great video or read a great white paper, create a blog post that highlights what you learned from those materials or record a podcast that reviews key lessons from your own perspective. Always be sure to attribute the content to the original author or provide a link, if possible.
• Check out the associated discussion forums (including those on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) and comment on relevant articles and share your perspective, making sure to refer back to any supporting content you’ve created that can add value to the discussion.

Use technology to create efficiencies

There are many ways you can use technology to make your job easier and scale your time more efficiently. This is especially true when creating and promoting your content.

TO DO:

• If you have a Mac computer, you can use some of its free programs like iMovie, or GarageBand to create videos or podcasts  or to turn a video into a podcast and vice-versa.
• If you’re a PC user, free, open-source programs like Audacity work very well for creating podcasts.
• Don’t be afraid to use your webcam to generate YouTube quality content videos (just be sure to use good lighting and incorporate your points concisely).
• Rather than being a slave to your social media networks, tools like HootSuite can help you distribute your content-based promotions across multiple social platforms at all times of the day using its scheduling capabilities.

While these points summarize what Rob and I discussed, I want to add one more key point for consideration: Create a content calendar. For such a complex and important discipline as content marketing, it can be overwhelming to tackle the whole job in one piece. So after you have completed an analysis of your content needs, schedule each action you need to complete to reach your goal. You’ll find the process to be far less daunting and more affordable once you understand it doesn’t need to be done overnight.

First, let’s get some standard assumptions out of the way. Podcasts are relatively easy to produce and can make a strong impact on your audience. But like any content marketing effort, podcasts take some careful planning to get the best results. You’ll have the best chance of success with podcasting if :

• You create and share podcasts because they work for your business not because they are cool or because your competitors are doing them.
• The podcasts you create are part of a concerted effort to provide your audience with content in a variety of forms because you understand that we all learn in different ways.
• Podcasts are part of your regular editorial calendar.
• You have the proper equipment for good production quality.
• You have a plan for publicizing your podcasts;  you are prepared to broadcast them on your website and/or via RSS feeds; you are mentioning them in your print materials, etc.

Before jumping into suggestions for energizing your content, let’s take a short detour. Close your eyes and imagine you are listening to your favorite podcast. (Hint: It probably isn’t business related.)

Now open your eyes and think about what interests you about this podcast. If you aren’t sure, use these questions to determine its strengths:

• Is it the host? Is his or her voice distinctive, likeable, charismatic, etc.?
• Is it the tone? Serious or funny? Relaxed or formal? Scripted or improvisational? Academic or aimed at nonspecialists?
• Is it the subject matter? Or this show’s take on the topic? Do they take a straightforward approach, or turn the issue on its head somehow?
• Is it the format? Interview or talking head? A conversation between two or more people? Interaction with listeners via call-in, mail, or social media?
• Is it the guests? Are they big names? Executives? Regular folks? Up and comers? A mix?
• Is it the running time? Is the show short and sweet? Long and detailed? Does it vary depending on the topic of each individual episode?
• Is it how it makes you feel? Do you feel challenged and engaged? Do you like that it is easy on the ears and that you do not have to think very much while you listen?

These questions illustrate some of the options for creating and structuring podcasts. And they should plant one overarching question in your mind: What will work best for my audience?

The basic rules for making a relevant and useful podcast are the same as they are for creating relevant and useful content of any type:

• Know your audience and what works for them.
• Know the goals of your podcasts and of each individual episode.
• Know how the podcasts fit into your larger content picture.

The basic rules for energizing your podcasts revolve around being willing to take a stand and produce content that is creative and inspiring.

• Find the connection. Podcasts have an advantage over written materials because the human voice is a natural way to share information and create a bond with listeners. Use that to your advantage. Find a dynamic speaker or someone with the kind of voice you could listen to all day. Think back to your days of choosing college classes: Would you rather take a class with a boring professor on a subject you loved or a class with a dynamic and engaging professor on a subject you did not know much about?
• Ask your customers. Find out what floats their boats. Use social media, create surveys or just throw out a few informal questions whenever you are speaking with them: Do you listen to our podcasts? Why or why not? What do you like most about them? What do you want to hear?
• It is all in the name. Like a good headline or subject line, a catchy name for your podcast will increase its visibility and usability. MyCompanyName Podcast probably will not draw in listeners. Also, remember that podcast content is not searchable (unless it is accompanied by a written transcript). So to aid in searches, use a catchy or informative name for the podcast and descriptive titles for each episode. A short summary may also be helpful.
• Give it time. Of course, we all want to be an overnight success. But you know the story. You have to work very hard and often for a long time before becoming an overnight success.  As  you are putting in the hard work, remember that one thing that brings listeners back and encourages them to share is consistent podcasts over time. Once a week, once a month, or whatever works for you. Listeners will know where to find you and when if you keep to a regular schedule. Even if you choose to create a limited series of just a few podcasts on a particular topic, make it available at regular intervals.
• Stay focused. Don’t be afraid of your niche markets. If you have more than one, create more than one podcast just like you create multiple versions of printed or online content. When you create the content for the niche, imagine you are speaking to just one person. Picture a real person — a customer or prospect — and speak directly to him or her on a topic that  you know he or she would like to hear. That helps keep the focus on relevant and useful information.
• Say it again. Even for auditory learners, it can be difficult to process complex information via audio alone, so find ways to repeat key learning points. Some useful ways to reiterate significant information are to simply rephrase it, have a guest or another host restate it in his or her own way or repeat the thought from a different perspective.
• Be daring. When all is said and done, try not to fall into the trap that so many of us so easily fall into: Thinking that serious business topics have to be discussed seriously with a serious voice and serious business words, or there is no way what we say will be taken seriously.

What is your favorite podcast? What do you do to spice up your podcasts? I’d love to hear some of your ideas.

Content leverage

Content leverage is using every  piece of content  in multiple ways to get the highest return on investment from each piece of content. Obviously, content is not valuable unless buyers are aware of it and are engaged with the material.  This requires marketers to deliver the content in new, interactive ways and channels. Borrowing from Newton’s first law, content in motion will tend to stay in motion and be more effective as a result.

Let’s track the life of a single blog article to bring these practices to life and show how a marketer can leverage content to its best use.

Developing content derivatives

An executive writes a compelling blog article based on new research from a survey of customers and prospects. The blog post explains how the research findings uncover an important buyer issue, validates the market need for the vendor’s solution, and highlights that solutions exist to address the issues identified in the research.

A research-focused post helps in the early stages of the buying cycle to inform  buyers that  solutions are available  to  make improvements.  In this scenario, marketers can develop content derivatives such as:

1) Research White Paper: The marketing team develops additional content based on the original blog post to create a white paper. However, keep in mind that research indicates buyers prefer shorter white papers; the recommended length is four to six pages.

2) Infographic: Research and best practices recommend converting content into an infographic to illustrate data that can be  quickly understood and enhance a call to action.  The elements of an infographic can be weaved into the white paper and other materials to make the data “come to life.”

3) PowerPoint: The presentation is an overview of the research findings on the market opportunity, a summary of the white paper and the executive’s best practice recommendations, which can be uploaded on Slideshare.

4) Live and On-Demand Webinar: The executive leverages the PowerPoint to present a live webinar, which is also recorded for on-demand playback.

5) Video and Podcast: The executive is interviewed in Q&A form to create a series of short and compelling videos and podcasts. Creating transcripts of each interview can provide additional content leverage.

To improve the connection and engagement of today’s busy buyers, more marketers are moving beyond traditional options to leverage interactive media such as:

1) Microsites: The marketing team develops and publishes a collection of related research and advice to a best practices microsite, providing buyers with a single resource to facilitate each step through the buyer’s journey.

2) eBook: The team  converts the key white paper content and PowerPoint into a visually compelling eBook, an interactive overview of the research, and key points  that an executive can quickly read  to understand main concepts and recommendations.

3) Mobile Content / Applications: The team converts the research into content optimized for mobile devices and creates a “Solution Finder” application to help users find the right solution  based on which piece of the research matches customers’  specific priorities / pain points.

4) Multi-media White Papers: The team enhances the white paper presentation with embedded video and podcast recordings, helping buyers feel more connected to the executive.

5) Interactive White Papers: Today’s buyers demand content be more relevant and concise. To deliver a personalized white paper, the marketing team should consider assembling and customizing the content for each buyer. This content customization can be developed on pivot points, which matches content to the buyer’s industry, location, size, role in buying cycles and pain points. The content is put into an interactive software application to survey the buyer on his profile. From there, a customized white paper is delivered with content precisely matching the buyer’s profile.

6) Interactive Diagnostic Assessments: Most buyers struggle to understand whether research issues are  relevant or applicable to them and whether addressing the issues should be priority.  The marketing team may consider a diagnostic assessment to gather and benchmark the prospect’s opportunities against industry peers and leaders. This can illustrate to buyers the competitive costs of maintaining the status quo versus the competitive advantages of adopting new solutions that can address priority issues.

7) Benefit Calculator: Without a business case, today’s economic-focused buyers are hard pressed to allocate budget and pull the trigger on an investment. The marketing team can tap the research to create a customized, interactive benefits calculator that will quantify potential benefits for prospects.

Putting the content in motion

The traditional ways to connect and engage buyers with valuable decision-support content is evolving to incorporate more channels and social sharing.

Traditional channels use promotions, excerpts, and links to the content in order to increase awareness and engage buyers.

Some of the traditional channels that the marketing team leverages to promote content include:

1) Website(s): Promote and link to the content from the main company website and microsites, not forgetting to promote the content via portals in support of sales / channel enablement.

2) eNewsletters: Include excerpts and links in regular newsletters as value-added content.

3) Banner Advertising: Use banners to promote the content as a call to action for users.

4) Paid Search: Use targeted keywords and content as a call to action.

5) Traditional Advertising: Place promotions and links from traditional advertising to the online content.

The one issue with these traditional channels is that they are paid advertisements and have a low trust rating.  However, social content placement is often earned and is trusted more than traditional advertising  by today’s skeptical buyers.

Using social media-focused channels, marketers connect and engage with influencers and the buyers’ communities via:

1) Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn Posts and Links – Beyond just links to promote the content, marketers post key excerpts of compelling findings and advice. These posts are liked and forwarded by other members.

2) YouTube & Slideshare Posts: Based on the type of content, the marketing team leverages specific social channels for sharing content such as YouTube for videos and Slideshare for PPTs and PDFs.

3) LinkedIn Discussion Groups and Quora: Marketers determine what key questions would be compelling to discussion groups  to attract group members’ comments on the research and findings as well as to  collaborate on additional opportunities, best practices and solutions..

4) Influencer Links: Marketers make influencers aware of the content and findings / advice, prompting several influencers to write about the content and pass along excerpts / links.

5) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Search engines prioritize links to content that are seen as  timely, relevant and valuable to the community. To optimize SEO, marketers still need to be sure that content is tagged properly and contains important keywords. Additionally, marketers must ensure that content is back-linked,  liked, promoted and linked to/from other independent and influential sites.

6) Article Syndication: Marketers convert the blog post and other content into article form, and get digital and print publishers to feature / promote the article because they feel it will help their readers.

The bottom line

When an author develops a blog article or other  piece of marketing content, it’s key that the marketing team leverage the content in multiple ways by creating derivatives to put the content in motion. This strategy should include creating multiple traditional and new interactive media derivatives that engage buyers with content through traditional and social channels.

This graphic illustration of  a single piece of content from a research oriented blog post can be used to derive multiple pieces of content to connect and engage buyers via multiple channels  and facilitate the buyer’s journey that can help drive content marketing effectiveness.

Have you tried this approach? Anything you would add to the graphic above?

1) Get big rewards for a little extra effort

Pay just a little more attention to the audio portion of content creation, and you’ll see a big difference in your content’s overall production value. Recently, I participated in a roundtable discussion at Podcamp Toronto 2011 , and one speaker said that higher production value is becoming more important in social media, to the point that it can make or break a bid for sponsors.

2) Be nice to your audience

Our brains work hard to process sound, much harder than they do to process images. Enhancing audio quality makes it easier for your audience to tune into your content and remember information. The longer the run-time of the piece, the more important its quality. After all, you want people to feel invigorated, not fatigued, by your content.

3) Stand out in a sea of content

On the Web, multimedia content is virtually everywhere and it varies enormously in quality, which partly explains the rise of content curation or “selection of worthwhile content.” Good audio makes your content stand out in a sea of unremarkable content.

What affects audio quality and what can you do about it?

Let’s examine one recording scenario – an audio-only podcast series.

You can record an audio podcast series at your office, but I recommend that you do not use the microphone (mic) built into your computer.

• Background noise, like the whirr of computer fans, hallway chatter and clatter, and sounds from the street outside, makes some words difficult for your listeners to hear.
• Weak and distant sound is the typical result of using an on-board computer mic, like the sound of your voice when you speak into a telephone receiver held away from your mouth. Listeners shouldn’t have to get used to hearing people speak off mic.
• Reverberation as sound bounces from hard surfaces such as walls, windows, ceilings and floors, cancels out some frequencies. Audio quality deteriorates further when problems like reverberation occur together with background noise.

The alternative to a built-in microphone is an external microphone, with three main options.

• Option one – use a microphone held on a stand and speak into it from a distance of about six inches. This solution is good if you’re recording in a room with little reverberation or background noise, and one person is being recorded.
• Option two – use a headband microphone, which is a good idea if your room has reverberation or background noise, and one person is being recorded. Keep the microphone slightly to the side rather than directly in front of your mouth. This way, you won’t pick up so much of your breathing or produce ‘pops’ when you pronounce words with the letter ‘p’.
• Option three – use a wired microphone held by hand, which is useful when you’re interviewing someone face to face. Hold the microphone no more than six inches from your mouth, then hold it the same distance from the other party’s mouth when they speak. As you move the microphone around, a lot of noise can travel from the cable up into the microphone, but you can avoid this by coiling the cable once and holding it like so:

You could use additional mics for recording two or more people but this requires mixing audio signals.

Right now, hold your hand six inches from your mouth and say “pop” or “pub”, and you can feel the breath on your skin. Whether you’re using a hand-held mic or a mic on a stand, consider placing a windscreen (a foam cover) on the mic to minimize this effect. If pops still occur, move the mic slightly off center.

How quiet is quiet?

1. The secret sauce of good audio recording is a quiet room. If you’re unsure of whether the noise in your recording environment will be intrusive, do this simple test:Record yourself speaking for fifteen seconds and continue recording for another fifteen seconds without speaking.
2. Play the test audio for yourself through headphones or ear buds, adjusting the playback volume so your voice is at a comfortable listening level. This is your reference level: it doesn’t tell you if your voice was recorded at the correct level, but it does tell you how noisy the room is.

Why is this test important? Your brain naturally filters out noisy distractions, but a microphone doesn’t. It records everything. By recording and playing back what the microphone “hears” you can judge background noise accurately.

Advice from the masters

I sometimes work on projects with my husband, an award-winning British film and TV sound editor. He has recorded hundreds of famous voices like those of Dame Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes and John Cleese. I’ve learned that producing good audio content is a matter of using the equipment you have as effectively as possible. Regardless of your budget, with know-how and ingenuity, you can produce content that’s a pleasure for your audience to tune into again and again.

Because of this history, some B2B companies still consider a website an “online brochure,” a misconception that causes a lot of trouble.

Today’s B2B website is a living, breathing, dynamic marketing asset. It’s the first thing people view when doing a search or following up on a recommendation made on social media. As such, it’s a real-time extension of your business culture, your marketing and sales department, your help desk, and your HR department – to name only a few functions.

Because the website is so important, B2B marketers and business owners really need to ensure that their sites are up to snuff before beginning a social media campaign or developing a content strategy because the website needs to support these activities in order for them to be successful.

But, where do you start when developing or updating your website? Here are the three biggest mistakes I see companies make. Focus on fixing these three issues with your website before developing your social media and content strategy.

Poor messaging

On the Home or Products/Services pages of your website, you need to state exactly what you offer and how it will benefit people. Yet too often B2B websites are full of goobledygook language such as, “We’re the leaders in providing scalable integrated digital gizmos for industry verticals.”

To determine if you have the right messaging, ask people outside of your company and industry to view your site. If they don’t “get it,” change your messaging until they do.

You’ll also want to consider how your company is positioned compared to your competitors. Do your messages sound the same? Are you using the same tired buzz words and industry jargon? Even worse, are you using the same stock photos?

Non-existent or faulty SEO

One of the first things I look for when talking with a prospective client is whether or not the website is optimized for search engines. Usually it’s not, and when I point this out, I’m told that they paid a web designer to “throw some keywords in the meta tags.”

Not understanding the importance of SEO is a huge mistake. You can find people who will argue SEO is dead but the bottom line is this: we all search for things using keywords. If your content isn’t optimized around the keywords people use, then they won’t find your content, period. (And no, I don’t think social media is a replacement for SEO – but that’s another post.)

If you don’t have the skills to figure this out in-house, find a good SEO copywriter.

Lack of content

Having an abundance of e-books, white papers, webinars, podcasts, video, etc. is good. Yet before you get to the content wealth stage, you need to ensure you have lots of “bread and butter” content including:

• Services / product info – I recommend that for each service or product you offer, you have a page of content describing it – versus cramming everything onto one or two pages. Having more pages also makes it easier to optimize for specific keywords.
• FAQs – Multiple FAQ pages regarding different aspects of your business answer people’s questions as well as drawing them to your site via search.
• Case studies / testimonials / client lists – Third-party endorsements help prospects decide whether they should do business with you.
• Articles / e-newsletter / blog – Whether you have all three or just one, this type of content educates site visitors, shows your expertise and gets passed around via social media.

Your B2B website is the best marketing asset you own. Help your website help you increase sales by ensuring that you communicate the right message, that people can find your content in the search engines, and that your site helps move people to the next step in the sales cycle.

If you are thinking about podcasting, it’s easy to get noticed when you use the interview format.

Select a theme and name

The first step in effective podcasting is to develop the theme of your podcast show. Give thought to the topics you can cover in your industry and the people you can interview. Select a theme and stick with it. Give your podcast show a name. As you build your audience, a commitment to your theme is what will build loyalty.

Commit to a schedule

It’s important to think of podcasting as a show. It’s a commitment, just as any other element in your marketing plan, such as a blog. You should commit to a podcast episode at least once per month, preferably more frequently.

Strongly consider using the interview format

While you could do a podcast that features only you in a monologue (or someone in your company), you need the personality and content to pull it off. Truthfully, this can be tough. I personally like (and use) the interview format. The interview format has some distinct advantages.

It offers variety
The biggest advantage to the interview format is that you have nearly endless options in guests and relevant topics no matter your industry. There are so many different types of guests you can have, including:

• Clients
• Strategic partners
• Competitors (not joking)
• People you encounter at conferences and events
• Industry thought leaders including analysts, authors and celebrities.

You may be surprised how willing people in your industry will be to be a guest on your podcast. The podcast medium lends itself well to busy schedules because your guest can be on your podcast show from the comfort of any location that has an Internet connection. A typical podcast interview lasts between 20 and 60 minutes.

You benefit from the popularity of your guest
The interview format works well because you can benefit from the popularity and subject matter expertise of your guests. Once you publish your podcast and begin to promote it, your guests and their loyal followers can help you drive listeners to your podcast. In most cases, your guest will willingly share and promote their interview with you.

You create goodwill
But, what if you interview someone who isn’t known at all? Turn it around and help build awareness for your guest by sharing and promoting the interview. It’s not realistic to expect every podcast episode to be equally as popular, and your audience will be forgiving if one guest is not as appealing as previous guests (which is a subjective sentiment). The magic is in consistently producing podcasts with interesting guest interviews that build loyalty in your audience.

You build a personal brand
Yet another reason I like the interview format is that it helps build your personal brand. As your podcast portfolio builds, so too does the brand and popularity of your podcast show. In time, you’ll receive requests from interested people who want to be guests on your podcast show.

Promote the podcast on your blog

Of course, each of your podcast episodes should be summarized in a blog post (aka show notes) with a photo of your guest and links to their content. Then, share that blog post using conventional social media:

• Tweet it up
• Post it to your Facebook page
• Bookmark it
• Email it to select people who may have interest in the podcast interview.
• Make sure people can easily subscribe to your podcast through RSS and iTunes.

Remember, that when you interview someone, it’s all about them. Promote your guest. By making the podcast interview all about your guest the content marketing value of your podcast will come back to you in multiple ways.

Do you have any tips or stories of podcasting? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!